GRYFFINDOR!
by MySuperAwesomePenName
Summary: "The moment her name was called, Severus had felt his entire body stiffen with shock." A series of glances inside Severus Snape's mind during Zoe Potter's years at Hogwarts.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: So originally, this was a chapter in my story, _Her First Year_, but I've been revising that one, and I realized that some of the little Snape POV chapters I had didn't really fit with the story. But I couldn't actually get rid of them, so I decided to post them as a separate fic! Anyway, I won't make you read the original fic, but there might be some plotholes here and there that might confuse you. You have been warned! :) **

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The moment her name was called, Severus Snape had felt his entire body stiffen with shock.

Another Potter? But how was that possible? The name _Potter_ was by no means a popular last name, so that meant they had to be related. Did this mean he had two Potters to protect?

He saw the Headmaster out of the corner of his eye, sitting there like there was nothing to be surprised about, a knowing gleam in his eye, and he knew the old man had kept something vitally important from him. He immediately felt a wave of anger. After all he had done for the Headmaster, the old man had still excluded him in the knowledge of Potter's _sister_.

Pushing his anger at being left in the dark to the back of his mind, he searched the faces of the children huddled in a group before the Sorting Hat, looking for Lily's, or Merlin forbid, James' features. Then he felt his heart stop for a moment when a pitifully small girl stepped out from behind a taller boy. His eyes stayed glued to her small frame as she hesitantly approached the Sorting Hat, and he felt all the blood drain from his face as she came close enough for him to see her face clearly.

She looked like Lily, almost exactly like her. She had the same red hair, though hers looked a bit darker, and while Lily's hair had laid perfectly on her angelic head, the little girl's was wispy and curled in odd places. He couldn't tell from where he was sitting whose eyes she had gotten, but he imagined that jumping up and full out staring at the child would raise a few questions, not to mention frighten the girl. He just hoped to Merlin that he would not have to look into James Potter's eyes for another seven years.

The girl sat upon the stool carefully, as if she would break it. Severus wanted to snort at the mere idea. If any child could break the old thing, she was certainly not the child to do it, skinny as she was. He briefly wondered why exactly she was so small to begin with. He seemed to remember the Potter boy had been small too, but there was something vaguely different about the girl's smallness. He had been so caught up in his thoughts that if he hadn't been in better control of his actions, he would have jumped when the Hat suddenly roared, "GRYFFYINDOR!"

Severus scowled as he watched her run to the Gryffindor table, squeezing in between the Weasley twins. James Potter had been in Gryffindor - the girl was bound to be just like him. It conveniently slipped his mind in that moment that Lily had been in Gryffindor, too.

He continued to steal glances at her from time to time, trying to figure out what color her eyes were. He had no clue why it was so important to him that she have Lily's eyes; maybe he just couldn't bear to look into the eyes of his enemy for the many years to come. But wouldn't looking into the eyes of the woman he had loved, who was now- .._gone_..., be just as painful?

He locked his gaze on the back of her head, willing her to turn around so he could see her face properly. Finally feeling his stare, she turned around and met his gaze, but he still couldn't tell from there what color her eyes were, so he simply nodded in greeting and turned his face away. It didn't matter anyway. She was probably so much like her wretched father that it wouldn't matter if she looked like Lily or not. She would be a trouble maker, because that's what all Potters were.

Now if only he could just convince himself of that...

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**AN: So what did you guys think? If you've already read _Her First Year_, then you recognized this as one of the chapters that I already had on there before I took it down, but it's been edited, and I think I've done a pretty good job improving it! **

**Review if you want to... :D**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Okay, so we've advanced a little into the story; in this chapter, Zoe has quite literally run into the Weasley twins and ended up with a concussion.. XD **

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Severus stared at the little girl in Weasley's arms, gasping quietly at the shock of seeing Lily's daughter and the pain he felt as he looked into Lily's pale, unmoving face. Her eyes were closed as if she was asleep, long dark lashes fanning pale cheekbones, and he wondered briefly why there was always something keeping him from seeing her eyes.

He heard Madame Pomfrey gasp very loudly as she placed a hand on her chest. "Oh my… What has happened?"

The Weasley who was holding her - Severus could never tell which was which - frowned guiltily. "I accidentally ran into her in the corridor."

The other one nodded. "She hit her head pretty hard," he added.

Madame Pomfrey _tutted_ at them, shaking her head. She turned to Severus, indicating that he take the girl from Weasley. "Severus, if you would?"

His body held rigid with secret dread, Severus reluctantly took the little girl from Weasley's arms, noticing with shock that she was hardly heavier than a six-year-old. She was soft in his arms as he tightened his grip on her to make sure he didn't drop her. Startled from her sleep, she opened her eyes blearily, and in that moment, he almost _did_ drop her.

Lily's eyes. She had _Lily's_ eyes.

He kept the harsh look on his face, though on the inside, he was shivering. She'd looked so much like Lily before; now she could almost have been her clone. He stared into her eyes - emerald green eyes - uncontrollably, fighting the urge to- to do what, exactly? Now there was no way in hell he could hate her, because hating her would be exactly like hating Lily.

His knees threatened to buckle, but he pulled himself together just in time, and he knew that Poppy and the Weasley twins had only seen Professor Snape being surprised by the girl's sudden movement.

But he knew that the girl, _Zoe_, had seen something by the way she was looking at him. Besides the initial fright that one experiences after falling asleep and waking up in someone's arms, there had been curiosity, as if she had witnessed his very emotions, though that was something he would not wish on anyone. There was also sympathy, a fierce need to make things alright. He fought the urge to shiver at how like her mother she was in that prospect.

Mentally shaking himself and slipping on the emotionless mask that all his students had witnessed over the years, he gripped her more firmly when he realized that she was slipping out of his arms. He turned to Poppy, letting her get a good look at the girl.

"You've got quite a bump there, child." She turned on the Weasley twins then. "You must pay more attention, young man! And you, too! Just because you weren't the one to run into her doesn't mean you shouldn't have been paying attention to where you were going! Luckily for you, I happen to have some pain relieving potion in the infirmary. Severus, do you mind?"

She motioned to Zoe, implying that she wanted him to carry her to the infirmary, and Severus put on a scowl, acting like he didn't care one way or the other how the girl was feeling or if she was in pain. But he did.

It wasn't long before they'd gotten the girl up to the infirmary and Poppy was shooing the Weasleys out of the hospital wing.

"Go on, out. Both of you," she said.

Severus found his control on his temper slipping when the dopplegangers began to protest, until finally he snapped at them, threatening detention. He watched in satisfaction when they left soon after.

He listened as Poppy talked to the girl. "Now, dear, you are free to leave, but I want you to come back and get another potion if you feel any more pain. Lord knows I'll need to stock up on them! Little Zoe Potter, following in the footsteps of her brother. He's in here once a week at least, and you'll probably be no better. You two are your father's children. Poor Lily, bless her soul, would've worried herself near to insanity over the two of you."

The girl practically had stars in her eyes at the mention of her parents, but Severus leveled the woman with the darkest glare he could muster. "I think that is quite enough, Poppy," he said through gritted teeth, positively fuming.

"Oh, fine, Severus. What class do you have next, dear?" Poppy asked, turning back to the child.

"Um, Potions," she said, her voice quiet.

"Severus can escort you to your class, dear, can't you, Severus. you are the teacher, after all."

The girl looked up innocently into Severus' eyes, making his stomach twist again. He was having a hard time adjusting to the way she looked. The boy had been easier to get used to; he only had his mother's eyes. But she looked almost exactly like Lily. Well, with a few exceptions.

Lily had always had sun kissed skin that was as golden as the sun, and she'd had too many freckles to count, though he'd certainly tried. The girl's skin was as pale as the moon, not a freckle in sight. Lily's hair had been wonderfully thick and had an almost golden tone to it, which, paired with her olive complexion, had given her a heavenly glow - like an angel. Her daughter's hair looked smooth and thin, with pieces curling in odd places and sticking out so that she looked like she'd just gotten out of bed.

So she had gotten something from the Potter fool.

He noticed that her hair had no sun streaks, no sign at all that she had ever been out in the sun for more than five minutes. Her eyebrows were thinner than Lily's, and her cheekbones were a bit less defined, though the hollows of her cheeks were certainly more noticable. Again, he felt the nagging sensation that there was something wrong with that picture. She was certainly smaller than Lily had been at her age, much like the Potter boy, though definitely smaller. She also seemed extremely introverted and timid, afraid to make any mistakes. Lily had been full of life. She had never been shy or timid.

So, in all, she was really nothing like Lily - except for the eyes. But _something _in her appearance made him think of her mother. He reasoned that it was probably just the fact that she was Lily's daughter - of course she was bound to remind him of her. Even Potter reminded him of Lily sometimes, though that was something he could barely admit to himself, much less speak aloud.

He tore his eyes away from her and nodded at Poppy, resigning himself to his fate. He put a hand to the little girl's elbow, guiding her to the door. There was silence in the corridor, something he was grateful for, since it meant that the Weasley twins had vacated the area and had not stuck around waiting for the girl. The last thing he needed today was to deal with the Weasley twins again today.

So it was unfortunate for him, then, that they were scheduled to be in his next class. He mentally groaned, feeling a headache coming on. He thanked whatever God there was that the Potter boy wasn't in any of his classes today. That would have been too much to take.

He knew that the girl had been studying him silently for the past thirty seconds, but when he turned to look her in the face, she quickly averted her eyes, reaching up a hand to nervously pull at her robe sleeves.

He frowned as he opened the door to his classroom, in which all of his first students sat at their desks. He was exactly two minutes late. He scowled, soundlessly motioning the girl over to one of the desks in the back, where a tall boy with dirty blond hair sat. He began speaking.

"Put your wands away, all of you. There will be no foolish wand waving in my class."

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Severus warily noted the friendly interaction between the sandy-haired boy- Ethan Thomas- and the girl as he instructed his classroom. The boy was a muggleborn. He hadn't yet discovered the longstanding war between Slytherin and Gryffindor, but chances were that he would find out sooner or later and cut off ties with her.

The situation eerily reminded him of his own school days, how he had tried to hide his friendship with Lily as he'd grown older because she was a muggleborn, and a Gryffindor. He could only imagine that the boy would have it twice as bad because he was the muggleborn. A muggleborn in Slytherin.

He knew that there would be no mercy from the boy's housemates. After all, a muggleborn would never be accepted in the most noble House of Slytherin. But as he watched the two of them interact, smiling shyly at each other, he knew that the boy would find a safe haven in Lily's daughter - for the time being, at least.

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**AN: What do you think? Leave me a review and let me know! :)**


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